In California (sierra nevadas) there is a crash site of a very rare aircraft, the B-17C. This model of the B-17 did not have any power turrets, nor a tail turret.
In November of 1941, this B17C took off from some mid-western state to fly to California to have its #3 engine replaced. The engine had been causing some trouble.
Well the pilot (no co-pilot on board) flies into a gigantic snow storm. Turbulence is very bad, hes flying on instruments. Then the #3 engine goes out. Now heres some trivia for you aviation buffs- Which engine on early B-17s powered the instrumentation? The #3. So the pilot is flying in 0 visibility, no instruments, 3 engines, and the turbulence is so horrible that rivets are popping out of the fuselauge.
The pilot orders all the crew to the waist section of the aircraft to stand-by to bailout. He then orders the crew to bailout. But the airframe is so twisted and bent from turbulence that the escape hatch is smashed shut. The pilot, despite his best efforts, finally gets vertigo and the plane goes into a spin.
As the crew is beating on the escape hatch trying to get out, the entire tail section of the B-17C rips off and the crew is somehow (massive g forces I would guess) able to bail out. But the poor old pilot never made it out.
Due to this crash, Boeing re-designed the B17 to withstand turbulence better and to also have multiple back up systems for the instruments. Guess what happened 1 month later? Largest war in history broke out.
